Have you ever wished you could create a communal brainstorming board for all of your students to share ideas? I have. That’s why I created an online brainstorming board that lets me do just that. It allows me to quickly create group assignments, upload images, assign tasks, and even rank the results…all in one place.
Brainstorming tools, also known as mind-mapping software, are meant to help you digitize this entire process and allow you to collaborate with your colleagues on projects with more ease without losing your creativity.
Online brainstorming lets you come up with ideas on the go and whenever the need arises, and even share all those ideas with your team members instantaneously. Just imagine—you don’t have to search for a pen and paper every time your creativity kicks in.
Let’s imagine the following scenario.
Before using a brainstorming tool: Since all team members are working remotely, you’re worried about whether everyone is on the right track. You feel your team is having difficulty keeping track of all the good ideas, things seem disorganized, while team productivity and enthusiasm start to flatten and fall.
After using brainstorming software: Your team, including the introverts who believe they are not creative, smash their creative blocks and start generating a pool of super-creative ideas. The team creativity, organization, and productivity start leveling up.
Sounds pretty good, right?
And that’s just scratching the surface when it comes to what these tools can do for you. Here are some more of the amazing benefits they offer.
Why You Should Be Using Brainstorming Apps
- They are easy and fun to use—Flexibility, intuitive interface and a bunch of useful features can only make your work more entertaining and inspire your creativity in the long run.
- They stimulate on-demand brainstorming—Online brainstorming tools are “portable” (so to speak), allowing you to be creative any time, anywhere.
- They offer a world of possibilities—They stimulate you to think divergently and consider many more possibilities than you would during a traditional brainstorming process.
- They remove your creative blocks—A brainstorming app helps you move one or few steps forward during your moment of creative thinking; you don’t stop with the first idea, you start thinking further ahead.
- They help you spark and identify ideas with the greatest potential value—You’ve got a good idea? Great, just keep going. Online brainstorming lets you generate a lot of good ideas and then choose the one that will help you reach your goal.
- They level up your team’s creative energy—Brainstorming programs drive everyone on the team to show their natural creativity, including the shy members of your team who are not so eager to share ideas.
The Evaluation Criteria
The tools we recommend would have to support the process (many don’t). Beyond that, we were seeking tools that met as many of these criteria as possible.
1. Easy to use with minimal setup
We’re after something a team can use regularly. Something developers can use in retrospectives, executives can use to plan, and sales can use to explore requirements with prospects. This means it has to be super easy to set up a new session.
Also, anything you ask a team to try in front of each other needs to be easy to figure out. If it’s confusing, people will get frustrated and embarrassed, and that’s no good for your meeting.
2. Easy to invite people
None of the products we explored had support for team audio or video, so we’re assuming you’ll also be running online meeting software at the same time. There needed to be a way to put a simple link in the meeting that everyone could just click to access the brainstorming tool, or some other really easy way to get everyone connected on the fly.
3. Engaging
Techniques like the KJ-Method naturally engage everyone in the meeting. When you’re together, it’s very obvious if someone isn’t enjoying the process or simply isn’t participating. We wanted to find something that encouraged this kind of energy and transparency in an online setting.
4. A way to export the results; no copy and paste!
When you use real sticky notes, someone has to type up the big ideas afterward. Right now, we’re focused on strategic planning, so we want to put the ideas from our brainstorm to use!
Since you type your ideas into these tools in the first place, it seemed like it should be a no-brainer to get them out again. Shockingly, not so.
5. Scaled to fit the working meeting
Most effective working sessions in the business world involve 3 to 10 people meeting for less than 2 hours. We wanted to find something that worked well at this scale. Some of the products we found were intended for individual use, and others optimize for big conference events with hundreds or even thousands of participants; not what we’re after.
6. Inclusive Design & Accessibility
When you brainstorm, you want to get everyone’s ideas in the conversation. At Lucid, we strive to make our software work for people with disabilities who may use assistive technologies, and for those joining on phones or other devices. We’re far from perfect here, but it’s a goal, and once we’d hoped to find shared by any brainstorming tool we’d recommend. Sadly, with one very qualified exception, this was not to be.
The Results
Our list currently includes 30+ tools, which we’ve grouped into several sub-categories.
The categories are:
- Collaborative document editors
- Simple sticky note applications
- Retrospective and design meeting tools
- Dedicated group brainstorming & decision support software
- Virtual design spaces & visual management tools
We’ll explore each category in turn, explaining how to run the sampling process using those tools and screenshots of our favorites. Then, we’ll list our top picks and details about the full list of products we tested at the end of the post.
Using Collaborative Document Editors for Brainstorming in Meetings
Collaborative document editors let teams write documents together in real-time. These tools aren’t intended for brainstorming specifically, and they don’t have anything that looks like a sticky note, so we were surprised at how well they worked in our test.
Tools in this Category
How to use Google Docs for brainstorming
Anna taught us how to use Google Docs for brainstorming, and it works pretty well with a bit of advanced setup. These steps would be the same for the other products in this category.
Here’s what you do:
- Before the meeting, create a new document with headings for each of the steps in your process Use headings for each step of the process, and leave space for people to type.
- Get a link to the document you can paste into your meeting. For example, here’s a view-only link to our sample document. Set your sharing so anyone with the link can edit the document.
- When it’s time to brainstorm, ask everyone to first type their ideas in a separate document. Then, they’ll paste these ideas under the first heading. You’ll need a separate timer for this part. We use the one built into Lucid.
- To group ideas, copy and paste them into new sections. Add a new heading for each group. Everyone can copy and paste ideas into groups.
- Then, decide how many votes each person gets. Each person types an X next to a heading to mark their vote. If each person uses a different color, it makes it easier to see when all the votes are in.
- Count up the Xs to determine the winning themes. Renting a house wins!
So, what did we like about using collaborative editors, and what were the drawbacks?
The Good
- Pretty easy to use. Most people understand how to type in a document, and how to copy and paste.
- You get an instantly usable result. The outcome of your brainstorming session is literally documented in the… well, in the document.
- This is the most accessible option. Perhaps the only accessible option, really. Microsoft, Google Docs and Etherpad have all put effort into supporting people using assistive technologies.
The Bad
- No guidance; you have to figure it all out for yourself. Some tools in other categories will walk a team through the process, but here you’re on your own.
- Invitations can be awkward. Something like Google Docs can be great for a team, but tricky when you work with a client who doesn’t use a Google account at work. To avoid this, you can either make your document public (so people don’t need to log in to edit it) or use an open tool like Etherpad.
- Doesn’t scale: This process worked pretty well when we tested it with just 5 or 6 collaborators. When we involve more people all editing at the same time, though, it’s a touch insane. Very 1000 monkeys with a typewriter. When you consider that these are tools people use primarily to write documents it makes sense; that’s not exactly the kind of activity that works best with 10+ folks all editing at the same time.
- It’s just not as cool. When you do a sticky-note exercise in person, the group gets energy from moving around and working with all the color. We found the tools that replicate some of this movement and color online to be more engaging. Brainstorming in a document mostly feels like work.
Conclusion: Recommended
Collaborative editors are a solid choice when working with a small team and you know how to set up and lead the exercise you’re using. These were the only really easy option for teams with accessibility requirements.
Using Simple Online Sticky Note Tools
When you imagine what an online sticky-notes tool might look like, you’re picturing one of these. Yellow, green, and pink squares with writing on them, “pinned” to a board with, yes, a cork-inspired background image. Teams can add items all at once, and click to drag the notes around.
The dividing line between simple sticky notes and virtual design spaces (also featuring sticky-note-esque boxes) is a soft blurry one. We’ve separated the groups based on how we’d use each tool – your mileage might vary.
Example of tools in this category
Example: How to use IdeaFlip for brainstorming
- Create a new board before the meeting. You’ll find the link for sharing the board hidden under the Invite Your Team heading
- Get the link to your board and paste it into your meeting.
- When it’s time to brainstorm, ask everyone to first type their ideas in a separate document. Then, take turns creating one note for each idea.You drag stickies from the left onto the board, then click to edit them.
- To group similar ideas, either just drag them on top of each other in layers, or draw a box around them to create a group. Stickies within the box can be moved around together, and you can add a label for the group.
Screenshot: Here we just grouped ideas by lumping them, and added a little sticky for the header. - Once you have your groups set, ask everyone to vote for their favorites. You could do this by adding Xs to the text, or happy face stickers! While IdeaFlip doesn’t have an explicit voting feature, the friendly stickers make a nice alternative. From our first test, showing the stickers in action.
- Figure out which concepts win by counting up x’s/happy faces.
- Export the board. You can export an IdeaFlip to PDF, PNG, or CSV, or Excel but some of these tools don’t have an export, so you may need to copy and paste anything important from your sticky notes.
The Good
- Simple is as simple does. These products are all pretty easy to use for short sessions. They don’t have a lot of extra features that might confuse people, and the interactions are all basically point-n-click.
- Great for the literal thinkers in the group. I know I’ve personally been asked at least 9,000 times for how to do “sticky notes online” by someone working to run an agile retrospective with a remote team. If you or someone you know has a super strong idea of how to run a meeting using sticky notes, this very literal approach will make them comfortable.
- Kind of fun. All the bright colors and happy add-ons, with stickers and videos and such, make these products fun to use with a casual audience.
- Mostly free or inexpensive and embeddable. Some tools in this list don’t even ask you to sign up before you create a board. All of them have easy links you can share with collaborators, and many can even be embedded directly into a shared webpage.
The Bad
- Many feel technically immature. A lot of these tools were clearly started as side projects, and can be a little buggy. They’re mostly free, so given the price, you may find the occasional glitch a non-issue.
June 2017 Update: IdeaFlip has come along since we originally posted this article. They now have more robust support for the session leader and a stand-alone version appropriate for use behind corporate firewalls. - Seriously inaccessible. There is A LOT of drag and drop used here, and keyboard controls come few and far between. And let’s not even get started on the semantics!
- Gets unusable when there’s too much going on. These tools work best with either only a few people, or only a handful of ideas in flight at once. When you try to have more than 5 people working on lots of ideas at once, it becomes quickly impossible to see what’s going on. Notes flip on top of notes, colors change out, you lose the item you were working on… Chaos!
Infinity — The Most Flexible Brainstorming Tool You’ll Find
Infinity makes brainstorming not only incredibly easy but also fun (and we’re not just saying this because we’re biased). This brainstorming software offers amazing flexibility, adaptability, and versatile customization options that will help you and your team power up your collective creativity, streamline team organization, and become more efficient.
Say goodbye to creativity blocks, stressful atmosphere, and project scope creep. Whether you’re looking for a way to motivate your team to maximize their potential for brainstorming or a freelancer trying to organize your ideas and tasks with ease, Infinity’s got it all covered.
Plus, it represents one centralized and organized place for a plethora of projects, from marketing projects and HR activities to sales and finance processes.
The best thing about this brainstorming app, however, is that it gives you the full freedom to create your structure, organize it, and customize it to your needs, making it a great virtual place for online brainstorming sessions. Additionally, you can view all of your data in six different ways, which can only further encourage you to spend more time working with your team on the next big idea.
“We use infinity daily. It is our core tool for project management. You can do almost everything, with so many different views. And it is improving every day!” – Javier Loureiro
There are also 20 fully customizable attributes you can add to your items, including labels, date, text, formulas, checkbox, and attachments, as well as useful integrations e.g. Zapier and Clockify, to help you enhance the way you work.
Have difficulty figuring out how this all works? No worries. Click on the link below and follow the steps how to organize your entire business in Infinity in just a few minutes:
Key Features
- Infinite Structure—Create an unlimited number of boards, folders, and items, and customize them to suit your needs.
- Six Views—Seamlessly switch between six different views to get your creative juices flowing. Use a List view to add new items (thoughts, ideas, and suggestions) or Forms to collect feedback from customers, then collaborate on their opinions with the team to improve your products/services. Infinity is a few steps away from launching two more views, Document and Gallery.
- Over 50 Templates—Infinity is packed with a bunch of templates you can use each for brainstorming.
- Custom Attributes—Infinity comes pre-packed with 20+ customizable attributes that can help you effectively brainstorm with your co-workers. For instance, once a new item is created, everyone involved in the brainstorming process can add their unique votes and show whether they are keen on turning that idea into action or they feel it’s just “blah”.
- File & Note Sharing—Infinity supports sharing multiple file formats, including images, GIFs, videos, etc. Quickly attach links to notes or link to other items in your folders to keep your team members inspired.
- Team Collaboration—Invite people from other departments to join your brainstorming boards, folders, or subfolders and encourage them to share their ideas, make comments under their suggestions or mention people who need to hear about them.
- Task and Project Management—Infinity is not just a plain brainstorming tool. Packed with tons of task and project management features, it lets you turn ideas into tasks and assign them to one or multiple users, or even turn an idea into a whole project.
And if you’d rather not get started on your own, you can choose one of our 50 pre-made templates and start making real work happen ASAP. Don’t know which one to choose? No worries, there’s a template for a variety of industries and niches in our library, from HR and marketing to sales and project management.
Here are our suggestions to help you get started:
INFINITY TIP: Leverage all the capabilities of Infinity’s labels, as they will allow you to keep track of the things you are working on and always be in the know about your status, progress, and priorities, etc. 
Pricing
Five available plans, all lifetime deals—choose wisely.
All jokes aside, though, Infinity is currently running a lifetime deal for all five plans, and you can get yours for as low as $249. This plan includes up to 10 team members and 50GB of storage.
Coggle — The Best Brainstorming App for Collaboration
Image Source: coggle. it
Coggle is one of the many online brainstorming tools out there that help you create flowcharts and mind maps, as well as produce beautiful notes which you can then share with others on the team. Overall, it provides you with a better visual of your mind mapping by creating branches as you go through the brainstorming process.
On top of this, it lets you browse a gallery of public diagrams to check what others have been working on, add images, draw links between unconnected branches, and so on. Changes that you make are visible to anyone on the team, no matter where they are located in the world.
To let people discover its features, Coggle offers a free plan which includes over 1600 icons, unlimited public diagrams, and an unlimited number of image uploads. Naturally, paid plans offer more features, control of data, and privacy. However, what’s good about Coggle is that all pricing plans offer downloads in PDF format or images of the diagrams.
Key Features
- Real-Time Collaboration
- Unlimited Image Uploads
- Multiple Starting Points
- Powerful Flowcharting
- Unlimited Private Diagrams
- No-Setup Collaboration
- Create Loops & Join Branches
- Save Every Change
- Add Floating Text & Images
Pricing
Coggle comes with a free plan and two more paying plans. So, if you are looking for more advanced features, you should opt for one of those two plans—the lowest one starts at $5 per month, per member.
Bubbl.us — A Brainstorming Software that Makes Mind Mapping Simple
Image Source: bubbl.us
Bubbl.us is a brainstorming tool that simplifies mind mapping. It will help you organize your ideas, stay on task, collaborate and share your work with others. The good thing about this brainstorming app is that it allows you to create a tree by starting a central topic and then add new ideas at the same level or a sub-level.
Also, you can customize the tree the way you like it so. It’s an ideal program for almost anyone, from students and teachers to creatives and business owners—it creates visuals of connected learning.
But, probably the main reason why may want to opt for Bubbl.us, especially if you are looking for a basic platform for beginners is that you don’t have to install anything into your mobile devices or computers. While this great tool is not packed with some super-cool features, it still offers some core capabilities you’ll find useful in the long run.
Key Features
- Easy Sharing
- Save as Image and Print
- One-Click Presentation
- Teamwork
- Distraction-Free Editing
- Web-based with nothing to download
- Share and collaborate with others
- One-click presentation
- Colorful and engaging
- Teamwork
Pricing
Bubbl.us comes with three plans: free, premium, and team. A free plan lets you create up to three mind maps, premium starts at $4.91 a month when paid annually. The team package starts at $59 per user for up to 3 team members.
MindMeister — The Best Brainstorming App for Generating Ideas
Image Source: mindmeister.com
MindMeister brings online brainstorming to a whole new level by allowing you to organize anything from workflows to project planning and ideas. It lets you collaborate with other team members in real-time, exchange ideas, discuss any changes using a live chat.
Besides being used by businesses, this is one of the online brainstorming tools used in learning institutions where it helps students visualize complex problems, take notes and share solutions.
MindMeister’s online mind map editor allows you to create, share and present content inside a web browser—its cloud-based nature lets you create any ideas you want without having to download the software. Additionally, the solution integrates with MeisterTask which helps you improve project management by enabling you to synchronize between mind maps and the agile project board.
Finally, if you are new to mind mapping, you’ll be glad to hear that this brainstorming software offers Mind Map training.
Key Features
- Attachments
- History Mode
- Project Management
- Mind Map Templates
- Imports & Exports
- Images, Video & More
- Publishing & Embedding
- Mind Map Presentations
- Third-Party Integrations
- Workflow Organization
- Icon & Image Libraries
- Live Embedding
- Access Permissions
Pricing
While MindMeister offers a free basic plan, it also has three paid plans: the Personal plan starts at €2.49 per month, the Pro plan costs €4.19, and you can get a Business plan for €6.29.
MindMup — A Brainstorming Software for the Ultimate Productivity
Image Source: mindmup.com
MindMup is a web-based brainstorming tool with a Google Drive connection which enables you to access your maps later through any device. It allows you to focus on your ideas without being distracted and lets you create an unlimited number of maps for free.
Another good thing about MindMup is that it gives you the ability to publish your ideas on social media networks from its interface allowing you to reach your audience easily and quickly without having to send them emails.
To make things more interesting, this tool helps you convert maps into PDF files and PowerPoint presentations, enabling you to keep things organized at any time. There are even built-in shortcuts that help you jot down your ideas in a matter of seconds, which makes it easier to brainstorm online with your team.
Key Features
- Structure Writing
- Create Storyboards
- Easy Project Management and Planning
- Share on Social Media
- Easy Collaboration
- Convert Maps Easily to PDFs & PowerPoint
- Create Storyboard
- Add Images by MindMup Atlas
Pricing
Although it offers a possibility to create an unlimited number of maps for free, it also has upgradable options which provide more advanced options: Personal Gold, Small Team Gold, Organizational Gold.
Mindly — A Brainstorming Tool to Help You Organize Your Inner Universe
Image Source: mindlyapp.com
Mindly is a creative and visual brainstorming app that lets you organize your ideas and inspires your creativity. While you can enjoy this app on iOS and Android devices, you will have access to only basic functionalities. When it comes to storing mind maps, you need Wi-Fi to synchronize with Dropbox. Plus, it allows you to be creative and productive even when there is no Internet connection.
Also, this cool brainstorming software lets you export mind maps into PDFs, print and share them with ease. However, there is no free trial so you might want to skip this tool and try out some other apps if you want to make sure it suits your needs before trying it out.
Do you have a block? Mindly can help you break it. Would you like to visualize your ideas? Mindly can do that, too. Also, a modern and smooth design and easy-to-create customizable elements will make your work even more enjoyable.
The free version allows you to add only three maps which is a bummer. Also, while you can add as many elements as you want, you cannot arrange them in a precise order. Despite these minor disadvantages, the bottom line is hat Mindly is one cool brainstorming app that will help you get organized cleanly and colorfully.
Key Features
- Visual Clipboard
- Dropbox Integration
- Passcode/Touch ID Protection
- Offline Mode
- Attachments
- Mind Map Export
- Element Hierarchy
- Customizable Color Schemes
Pricing
Mindly has a free plan and its basic pricing starts at $6.99.
Scapple — A Unique Tool for Brainstorming Online
Image Source: literatureandlatte.com/scapple
The good thing about Scapple is that it has a pretty simple and intuitive interface which also gives you the flexibility of figuring out how things should look like and what goes where in real-time.
It creates great-looking mind maps and you are not limited to starting your mind map with a central theme—you can easily start with a tiny idea and then go back to look for the main idea with the greatest potential. A drag-and-drop feature lets you sketch out complex relationships quickly without losing your flow.
However, there are two reasons why this brainstorming tool might not be the best choice for inspiring your creative thinking: it doesn’t support mobile devices or Linux and it is rather pricey when compared to some other more affordable alternatives.
Either way, if you are experimenting and trying to find the best brainstorming app for your team, then Scapple is definitely worth the shot.
Key Features
- Group Notes
- Completely Free Form
- Connect Notes
- Drag Notes into Scrivener
- Custom Notes
- Write Notes Stack and Organize Notes
- Full-Screen Mode
- Export or Print Your Ideas
- Move and Arrange Notes Easily
Pricing
Unlike many other apps, Scapple gives you a 30-day free trial. Pricing is pretty straightforward – it costs $18 for a single license, or $14.40 if you’re an academic or student. However, prices vary based on the region where you are located.
LucidChart — A Brainstorming Software with Powerful Visuals
Image Source: lucidchart.com
This is the best brainstorming app if you want to integrate it with third-party apps which include Jira, G Suite, Dropbox, Confluence, and many others. It is a good choice not only for individuals but also for small teams and large corporations.
What sets this tool apart from others is that it is super-intuitive and easy to use. Also, since it is web-based, it eliminates the hassle caused by installing and makes the whole team’s online collaboration easier, allowing everyone to stay up to date in real-time.
In addition, it offers great out-of-the-box components and can be accessed from any device through any operating system using supported browsers.
Key Features
- ER Diagram Tool
- AWS Network Diagram Software
- Database Design Tool
- Vision Online
- UML Diagram Tool
- Network Diagram Software
- Data Flow Diagram Software
- Process Mapping Software
- Value Stream Mapping Software
- Business Process Mapping Tool
- Process Documentation Software
- Wireframe Software
- Mind Mapping Software
- Floor Plan Software
- Concept Map Maker
- Workflow Diagram Software
Pricing
Starts with $5.95 a month, and offers three more pricing plans: basic, pro, team, and enterprise. It offers a possibility of a free trial.
Google Documents — The Most Familiar Brainstorming App
Image Source: google.com/docs/about
Unless you have been living under a rock, you must know about Google Docs. There is no community, a team, or an individual who hasn’t at least tried this amazing brainstorming tool, and there are already many of them across the globe using it daily.
Besides being used for file sharing, Google Documents lets you show your creativity and help others on the team share their ideas and thoughts in just a few clicks. Simply create a new document, share it with several people you want to collaborate with, and give them permission to edit, comment or suggest ideas.
Since everyone can collaborate in real-time, you can always see who is writing what and leave comments or feedback, or you can capture their ideas separately and then add them to the document. The possibilities are endless.
Unlike other brainstorming tools for writing, Google Documents does not offer the ability to create a tree-like structure and keep ideas and thoughts organized. Also, it lacks a variety of templates which would make work much easier especially for those who are starting using the tool from scratch.
Key Features
- Access Control
- Activity Dashboard
- Chat
- Collaboration Tools
- Commenting
- Third-party Integration
- Reporting & Statistics
- Workflow Management
- Document Storage
- Drag and Drop Interface
- Data Export/Import
- Activity Tracking
- Customizable Branding
- Automatic Notifications
- File Management
Pricing
Google Documents is free for the average user. However, if you wish to purchase a “Business Version”, you will have to pay $5 per month.
WiseMapping — A Free Brainstorming Tool for Individuals and Businesses
Image Source: wisemapping.com
WiseMapping brainstorming software is not only an ideal solution for collaborative planning and teamwork but also individual note-taking and inspiring creativity on the go. It can be run on any online server, and its interface is pretty straightforward—all of its features are displayed as icons in the ribbon.
So, if you are a fan of minimalism, WiseMapping may be for you. Also, it offers several functions like topic dragging and dropping, icons, simple layout, hyperlinks, zoom in and zoom out allowing you to create your mind maps effortlessly.
Each user can create their own space for creating any kind of mind map without worrying about losing their data as everything is automatically saved through the cloud.
If you are a beginner and learning the ropes of using this tool, then this is one of the brainstorming programs to try out as it provides you with a YouTube tutorial on how to create your first map.
And while some people are perfectly satisfied with how this app works, some complaint about its limitations on functions, so it may not be the right fit for people trying to create a professional mind map.
Key Features
- Topic Creator & Editor
- Zoom In & Out
- History Recovery
- Maps Import & Export
- Collaborative Workspace
- Autosave
- HTTP Links
- Icons
- Notes
- Personal Workspace
- Text and Style Formatting
- Drag-and-Drop Function
Pricing
This tool was created by a few enthusiasts who like to experiment with mind mapping. Hence, the tool is 100% free for anyone who is looking for a way to bring their creativity to a higher level.
Miro — All-in-One App for Online Brainstorming
Image Source: miro.com
Miro is an online brainstorming tool that gives you the ability to conduct meetings and workshops, do user experience research and design, create diagrams and mind maps, and carry out strategic planning—all in a single app. On top of this, it lets you import and export all of your projects to a whole range of tools including Dropbox, Jira, Slack, and Google Drive.
Plus, you can share it with your colleagues so they can edit the maps and collaborate live. Instead of offering lists, Miro supports your mind as it creatively wanders through a set of features like agile workflows, mind mapping, and whiteboarding. It is super-easy to navigate and to convert from the free version to the full version.
However, if you are just getting to know this tool and entering the world of online brainstorming you might experience a steep learning curve as Miro is a bit more complex than other software on the market.
Key Features
- Projects
- Templates and Frameworks
- Infinite Canvas
- Widgets
- Mouseover Collaboration
- Embedded Video, Chat and Commenting
- Integrations
- Account & User Administration
- Creative Management
- Diagram
- Business Process Management
- Customer Journey Mapping Tools
- Mind Mapping
- Whiteboard
- Wireframe
Pricing
Miro offers free and premium plans starting at $10 per user per month.
X-Mind — The Most Professional Brainstorming Software
Image Source: xmind.com
XMind is a useful open-source, brainstorming app that gives you a nice head start and helps you organize yourself, brainstorm and manage all the gathered data. What makes this tool so special is that it lets you collect and craft all of your ideas, as well as organize them logically so you can uncover your priorities, trends, and patterns.
Additionally, XMind lets you export your mind maps into several different formats including PDF, TXT, HTML, PNG, JPEG, etc. Plus, it offers logic, tree, and fishbone charts with built-in search, spells checker, audio notes, and encryption. It supports the most frequently used operating systems including Apple OS, Linux, Microsoft Windows.
When it comes to its downsides, some people find this brainstorming tool pretty slow and limited in terms of functionalities in the free version when compared to the premium one.
Key Features
- Tree Chart
- Logic Chart
- Gantt View
- Presentation Mode
- Workspace User Interface
- Clip Arts
- Slide-based Presentation
- Brainstorming
- Office/PDF Compatibility
- Business Chart
- Basic Mind Mapping
- Organizational Chart
- Templates
Pricing
Pricing plans range from free up to $79 per year.
MindNode — A Tool for Straightforward Online Brainstorming
Image Source: stuff. tv
One thing that sets MindNode from other brainstorming apps is that it is perfectly designed for Apple users. It’s pretty straightforward and powerful; you can easily tap the plus icon to add a new node on your iPhone or just click it on your Mac. Plus, it’s fully native which means you don’t need an internet connection to work in it.
To make things more fun, if you are an Apple lover who likes using the Watch app, Apple Reminders, OmniFocus, Things, and others, we’ve got great news for you—MindNode also has a bunch of other features that will keep you happy if you’re deep in Apple’s ecosystem.
It can also easily export your mind maps into PNGs, PDFs, and also RTFs which is helpful when distributing virtual copies of maps.
All in all, it is one of the more user-friendly brainstorming programs that enable you to take the idea or a concept and create all the nodes relevant in a train of thought. This lets you expand each of your ideas and create beautiful maps of various ideas that are born along the way.
Key Features
- Smart Layout
- New Connections
- Quick Entry
- Capture Your Thoughts
- Focused Feature
- Clean Interface
- Import/Export
- Publicly Share Documents
- Organize Ideas
- Outline View
- Turn Ideas into Tasks
- Share Projects
- Capture Thoughts in Many Forms
- Sync
- Style Options
Pricing
MindNode offers monthly and yearly subscriptions and each of them comes with a free 14-day trial. These plans start at $2.49 (monthly) and $19.99 (yearly).
Conceptboard — A Collaborative Online Brainstorming Whiteboard
Source: conceptboard.com
If you like team brainstorms using whiteboards, you may want to try Conceptboard: a visual collaboration platform for creative teams that work remotely. It offers a plethora of cool functionalities like real-time conferencing and project management, whiteboards, and it functions as one secure and powerful workplace for all files, nodes, ideas, and feedback.
This brainstorming tool comes with a whiteboard-based interface where the team can elaborate on their ideas and express their thoughts by drawing, inserting sticky notes, and other markup content. In case you need to share important info, there is a video chat where you can communicate with other colleagues anytime, anywhere.
There’s no need for you to waste your time installing the software and it comes with import/export tools with the support for Google Drive integration and social sharing features. Besides the whiteboard toolkit, Conceptboard offers project management functionalities allowing you to organize your tasks and your team in no time.
Finally, this brainstorming software also supports integrations with different third-party systems including ImageRelay, Trello, Mail2Board, Google Drive, Tokbox, and Salesforce Chatter.
Key Features
- Project Management
- Collaboration
- Gantt Charts
- Idea Management
- Project Planning
- Testing/QA Management
- Project Templates
- Audio/Video Conferencing
- Brainstorming
- Chat / Messaging
- Discussion Boards
- Whiteboard Interface
Pricing
Conceptboard offers a free version and a free trial. Pricing starts at $7.50 per month, per user.
SpiderScribe — A Brainstorming Tool for Sharing Ideas with Ease
Image Source: spiderscribe.net
SpiderScribe is a brainstorming software that helps you organize your ideas through connecting notes, calendar events, and freeform maps. Your maps are stored in the cloud and can be accessed anywhere allowing your entire team to collaborate seamlessly. Also, it gives you the freedom to print your maps for physical information dissemination and embed your mind maps on your website.
SpiderScribe allows you to create a stencil, which you can then customize by changing fonts, colors size, and formats. Plus, it’s super-easy to use and fluid: the file attachments offered with the free plan, tiny as they may be, are a nice touch.
However, clicking and dragging objects across your workspace is not the only thing you can do with this tool for online brainstorming. The application offers a drawing mode you can use on your touch-enabled devices to make mind mapping more simple and fun.
Keep in mind that SpiderScribe is a good option if you don’t mind Flash—if you are looking for a non-Flash solution, SpiderScribe is not the tool you should be focusing on.
Key Features
- Text & Images
- Events & Location Maps
- Quick Search
- Group Selection
- Map Duplication
- Map Embedding
- Text Clipboard
- Private & Public Maps
- Map Thumbnail
- Redo & Undo Functions
- Map Printing
- Stencil Auto-Alignment
- Keyboard Shortcuts
- Zoom In & Zoom Out
- Map Sharing
- Real-Time Collaboration
- Navigator Panel
- Map Export to Images
- Drawing Mode
- Folders
- 5pm Project Management Integration
Pricing
Personal accounts are free. Pro accounts are at $5 per month and business accounts at $25 per month
Milanote — An Elegant Brainstorming Tool for Creative Teams
Image Source: milanote.com
Milanote is an innovative brainstorming app specifically designed for people working on creative processes that allow ideas to develop naturally. This tool works like a creative studio where you can run team brainstorming sessions in real-time (no matter where your co-workers are), bring your best ideas to, and arrange inspiration.
With Milanote, you can unleash your creativity to the maximum. The creators of this awesome brainstorming software know good ideas go far beyond just words. That’s why they developed an app where you can arrange everything from notes, files, photos, videos, to tasks.
Milanote encourages collaboration and communication and makes it a breeze to explore ideas, build upon each other’s ideas, comment under tasks, and receive notifications whenever there’s something new happening on your virtual canvas.
Not only Milanote makes online brainstorming a pleasure but provides guidance in turning your ideas into actionable plans. You can organize them visually into groups and boards, set up to-do lists, and nail creative work and projects.
Key Features
- Unlimited Notes, Images, and Links
- Unlimited File Uploads
- Drag-and-Drop Interface
- Moodboards
- Web-Clipper
- Templates
- To-Do Lists
- In-App Notifications
- Real-Time Collaboration
- Real-Time Backups
Pricing
Milanote offers a free plan with no time limit. You can sign up for a pay-per-person plan ($9,99/user/month) or a team plan ($49/month for a team of 10 people or $99/month for a team of 50 people)
Idea Wall — An Open Online Brainstorming App
Image Source: idea wall.fi
Sticky notes are so passé, especially because most teams nowadays are not in the same place physically but working remotely. The best way to share ideas, brainstorm strategies, and collect feedback is to use a brainstorming software like Idea Wall.
With this tool, it is irrelevant if you want to brainstorm online with 5, 50, 150, or 500 persons. That’s exactly why you can use Idea Wall to collect your team’s thoughts and ideas but also listen to the voice of the customer (ask them for suggestions on new product features and identify trends). Best of all? It has a zero learning curve, nada!
Idea Wall lets you collect and structure ideas the easy way. It requires no app installations, signups, and logins that typically slow down the brainstorming process and frustrate people. Optionally, you can protect a wall with a password and prevent intruders from stealing your ideas.
Simply set up a wall (a web page) and share the link with the participants. Submitting ideas on the wall takes seconds and the app will make them visible at once. Everyone involved can like and comment on submitted ideas while site/wall managers can organize and re-organize, edit, and remove ideas, and disable idea submission.
Key Features
- Unlimited Walls and Participants
- Anonymous Participants
- Custom Idea Categories
- Risk Management
- Likes and Comments
- Idea Sorting and Filtering Options
- Wall Moderations
- Excel Export
- Multilingual Interface
- Data Protection
- Permissions
Pricing
Idea Wall has 3 paid plans—€175/month, €120/6months, and €1350/12months
Mural — A Super-Dynamic Brainstorming Software
Image Source: a mural.co
The mural is among the brainstorming tools that have everything you need to put your imagination to work. Packed with a ton of flexible features, this digital workspace makes it a breeze to come up with new ideas, collaborate on them, and visualize them in a myriad of ways.
It comes with a bunch of ready-made templates you can use for everything from brainstorming to creating agile workflows. With Mural, you’ll probably experience creative draught never again, as working in this software is, beyond everything, fun.
Some of the tool’s highlights are digital sticky notes that make it easy to collect ideas, thoughts, and feedback, diagrams that simplify mapping out complex workflows, drawings for maximum creativity, and more, and frameworks you can use to organize ideas.
The mural is much more than an online brainstorming platform. It is just great for capturing ideas and opportunities, but it also encourages communication on all of the visual features and lets everyone involved vote on ideas, helps you stay focused by timing activities, and makes sure everyone is doing their best work.
Key Features
- Gallery of Customizable Brainstorming Templates
- Idea Prioritization
- Customizable Shapes and Connectors
- Sticky Notes and Text
- Images and GIFs
- Frameworks
- Video and Chat
- Real-Time Collaboration
- Idea Presentations
- File Storage
Pricing
Mural offers free trials for their Starter ($12/user/month) and ($20/user/month) plans. If you are a team of 50+ persons, contact them via email to set up the best plan for your organization’s needs.
Stormboard — A Colorful Online Brainstorming and Ideation Software
Image Source: stormboard.com/blog
Stormboard is shared workspace teams use to work better together. This brainstorming software makes it child’s play to generate and develop new ideas, refine, organize, and prioritize them.
To kickstart your productivity, Stormboard comes with dozens of ready-made brainstorming templates (Action Brainstorming, Mind Mapping, Product Vision Board, Job Description Brainstorm, etc.) you can customize in a few clicks.
Packed with sticky notes and whiteboards, Stormboard allows everyone from the team to quickly share ideas and make suggestions. It provides seamless remote collaboration and encourages co-workers to discuss ideas, collect feedback, and help them find a happy medium. Stormboard features advanced reporting capabilities and runs reports after every meeting based on the notes you take.
Once you’ve captured all ideas, this brainstorming tool encourages you to rise the best ones to the top, group together various idea categories, and spot and remove duplicates. Yet, Stormboard goes far beyond brainstorming and helps teams turn ideas into action—create plans, projects, and tasks, set goals and milestones, track progress, and much more, as its possibilities are almost endless.
Key Features
- Brainstorming Templates
- Idea Import From Excel and CVS
- Idea Grouping
- Digital Sticky Notes
- Whiteboards
- Index Cards
- Text and Image Stickies
- Real-Time Collaboration
- Meeting Reports
- Project Management Features
Pricing
Stormboard is completely free for individuals and educators. Their paid plan for teams and businesses is priced at $10/user/month while their enterprise plans start at $16.67/user/month.
Ayoa — A Brainstorming App for Individuals and Team
If you believe it is about time to say goodbye to flipcharts, whiteboards, and unproductive, time-wasting meetings, Ayoa could be the right tool for you. This ultra-productive, visually stimulating brainstorming software can spark your team’s creativity and make sure no idea is forgotten a few days or a week later.
In other words, Ayoa makes it easy to look back at ideas and, more importantly, turn them into action. Using this tool, you can make connections between ideas using branches to structure them in a way that suits you most and unleashes creativity, turn them into tasks, add assignees, start and due dates, and reminders.
This online brainstorming platform is fully customizable to your needs. You can generate ideas in a meeting, color-code them, add images, and create inspiring brainstorms with Mind Maps.
Of course, you can’t program yourself to come up with ideas only when doing meetings. Whenever you have a burst of inspiration, go to Ayoa’s Idea Bank, a place where you can store thoughts and make sure no great idea goes to waste.
Then, once you’re ready, simply drag these ideas into a Mind Map, and voila—they’ve become actionable. Needless to say, Ayoa encourages collaboration and allows people from the team to vote for favorite ideas so you can know which ones to work on first.
Key Features
- In-Meeting Brainstorming
- Digital Whiteboards
- Color-Coded Ideas
- Idea Categories
- Tags and Filters
- Idea-to-Task
- Idea Bank
- Voting on Ideas
- PDF and Text File Exports
- Mind Map Presentations
Pricing
Ayoa’s basic plan is completely free of charge. Their Pro plan is priced at $10/user/month and up (depending on the number of users). The same applies to their Ultimate plan that comes for $13/user/month and up.
Conclusion
Brainstorming sessions, in a traditional setting, are powerful tools for generating new ideas and reaching a decision. Even in a technological age where everything can be done from the comfort of your desk, it is possible to brainstorm online.